Just before reaching his top speed, Quicksilver reached into his pocket and took out a small metallic sphere. It gleamed silver in the light, perfectly round and polished to a mirror finish — its surface so smooth that one could already guess its intended purpose.
Thor, realizing he could not possibly evade an attack at that speed, straightened his posture and braced himself. Lightning crackled along his armor, coiling around him like living serpents. He had already learned from their earlier exchanges — Quicksilver's strength could not match his own divine resilience. If he couldn't dodge the blow, then he would endure it.
"You can't bring me down!" Thor bellowed, his booming voice drowned by the roar of thunder.
But instead of striking him, Quicksilver simply smiled. Then, in a flash of blue light, he sprinted past — not attacking, not even glancing back, just running straight past Thor as if the god weren't even there.
Thor turned sharply, confusion flashing across his face. Quicksilver's azure trail was already a streak on the horizon — and in the next instant, even that vanished from sight.
He hadn't turned. He hadn't stopped.
He was still running.
The others, watching from behind the barrier, were equally puzzled.
"What's going on? Did he… run away?" one of the agents muttered in disbelief.
Only one person on that battlefield truly understood what was happening.
Wanda knew exactly what Quicksilver was doing.
He wasn't running away.
He was charging up.
Quicksilver's power was super speed, and while he could maneuver easily at supersonic levels — twice the speed of sound, even — anything beyond that became exponentially harder to control. Once he broke past that threshold, turning or stopping became nearly impossible, much like a jet fighter that couldn't change direction in midair without tearing itself apart.
The faster he went, the more limited his path became — until there was only one direction left to go: straight ahead.
To achieve his highest possible velocity, Quicksilver needed distance — an impossibly long stretch to keep accelerating. For him, the world itself was a track. He could run across mountains, oceans, and skies alike. Terrain was no obstacle. The only limitation… was the circumference of the planet.
And that was exactly what he intended to use.
If Quicksilver wanted to reach near-light speed, he needed to run roughly 40,000 kilometers — the distance around the Earth. For anyone else, that would be absurd. But for Quicksilver? It would take only a few seconds.
As his fading silhouette vanished beyond the horizon, his voice echoed faintly in the air — a taunting whisper that seemed to come from everywhere at once:
"Thor… speed is power. Have you ever been hit by the speed of light?"
Moments later, the world itself noticed.
Across multiple nations, military satellites and radar systems went haywire. Sensors picked up a massive object streaking across the surface of the Earth at incomprehensible speeds. The readings were dismissed as malfunctions — they had to be.
Something moving near light speed on the planet's surface? Impossible.
Except… it was happening.
After passing Thor, Quicksilver accelerated relentlessly, his every stride tearing through the sound barrier again and again. He sprinted across continents, leaving behind shockwaves that leveled trees and shattered windows.
He dashed across mountain ranges, sped over endless oceans, and blurred through deserts and cities alike. In one instant, he was a storm racing across the Sahara; in the next, a streak of light skimming across the frozen glaciers of Antarctica.
He circled the Earth once — running so fast that even the rotation of the planet seemed still.
And then he turned back.
From the other side of the world, Quicksilver raced straight toward Thor's position — not to strike with his own hand, but to unleash the weapon he carried.
The metallic sphere in his palm — the one he'd held so tightly — was now his bullet.
At that unimaginable velocity, even Quicksilver himself could not safely make contact without destroying his body. So, just before reaching impact range, he released the alloy sphere and let physics do the rest.
The ball, propelled by the momentum of near-light speed, streaked through the air like a blazing meteor, its surface igniting from friction, turning white-hot as it tore through the sky toward Thor's chest.
For Quicksilver, the world had slowed to stillness. The entire battlefield seemed frozen in time — the soldiers unmoving, the snow suspended in midair, lightning locked in mid-flash.
And then, from that silent eternity, the impact came.
The Earth itself seemed to tremble.
To anyone watching in real time, there was no warning. One second Thor was standing tall, hammer raised — the next, a blinding flash erupted as the metal sphere slammed into his chest like a falling star.
There was no sound — just force.
Pure, unstoppable force.
The impact launched Thor upward with such velocity that he vanished almost instantly, his body trailing fire as he shot through the clouds and broke through the atmosphere.
If not for his divine Asgardian physiology, the strike would have punched a hole straight through his chest. Even so, the shockwave sent him reeling into unconsciousness. His vision went black the moment the sphere struck his heart.
Within seconds, the God of Thunder was flung beyond the pull of Earth's gravity — his armor burning, his body engulfed in flames as he tumbled helplessly into the void of space.
Below, no one could comprehend what had just happened.
The soldiers stared upward, speechless. They hadn't even seen the attack. One moment, Quicksilver had vanished; the next, Thor was gone — hurled into the sky like a missile, disappearing into the gray, snow-filled clouds.
As silence fell over the battlefield, the only sound that remained was the low hum of dissipating energy.
And Quicksilver?
He was still running.
After all, to slow down from near-light speed…
he'd need to run around the Earth one more time.
__
T/N:
Hello everyone! My Patreon is just $4 — a perfect opportunity to access 90+ advanced chapters and support.
🔗 patreon.com/user?u=79514336
Or simply search Translator-Sama on Patreon